Globalstar, Inc. (Nasdaq: GSAT), the mobile satellite voice and data company that moved to Covington from Silicon Valley, announced that it has completed an equity investment of unspecified value in TrafficCast International, Inc., a leading provider of travel time forecasting and traffic information based on advanced digital traffic data. TrafficCast has previouisly raised a $3.5 Million Series A.
TrafficCast provides accurate real-time and on demand mobile traffic information and travel-time forecasts by analyzing GPS-based tracking and other data from expressways and major arterials as well as information from secondary and tertiary roadways, weather conditions, roadway incidents and events, construction, and historical traffic patterns.
Globalstar’s chairman Jay Monroe said that the investment “continues to demonstrate our interest in investing in providers of innovative mobile device technology solutions. Just over a year ago we finalized our acquisition of mobile device manufacturer Axonn and with this new investment we continue to look at additional ways of further leveraging the Axonn acquisition and the deployment of our second-generation satellite network. With Globalstar, TrafficCast can now provide low cost, ubiquitous coverage and global support services for their customers, even when those customers are far beyond the range of terrestrial wireless communications.”
“We are delighted to have a partner in Globalstar and access to their experience and expertise in mobile solutions and location-based services,” said Al McGowan, CEO of TrafficCast. “Globalstar brings unique capabilities to our BlueTOAD(TM) product family and will enable us to deliver critical information to public safety agencies and consumers when it is most needed where terrestrial data networks may not be effective.”
With increasing congestion facing an estimated 100 million drivers in the United States alone, TrafficCast envisions an increased demand for advanced traffic flow data and travel information for a range of applications supporting mobile services, navigation, web portals, media, enterprise and the public sector. Over 10 years, TrafficCast has researched and developed the largest traffic data platform in the industry referencing historical and real-time traffic for over 450,000 miles of roadways in the United States.